


Run Away

by AshAndSnow



Series: Bad prompt mashups [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Dirty business, Dysfunctional Family, Falling In Love, Fortune Telling, Like, M/M, Running Away, Violence, idk how to tag that, it's not really the mob but it definitely feels a little like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27629794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshAndSnow/pseuds/AshAndSnow
Summary: When Tony falls in love with a fortune teller, he doesn’t realize how complicated it’s about to get. Turns out, Loki’s family runs a rather dirty business.(Prompts:1. You discover that the father of someone close to you is responsible for a growing number of missing people.2. A fortune teller falls in love with their regular client.)
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: Bad prompt mashups [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1987786
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Run Away

i.

The weather’s all sunshine and blue skies, and the nice day is completely at odds with the dreariness and dread of their plans for today.

”You think you’ll be okay?” Tony asks, looking to the passenger seat where his fiancé is sitting. He wants to reach out, hug him, comfort him. But his hands remain on the steering wheel.

Loki nods. Then shrugs. Then nods again.

Tony can’t blame him for his indecision. After all, he knows better than most about the complicated feelings Loki held towards his father figure.

ii.

_It had started as a joke._

” _Oh, come on,” Pepper had goaded him. ”It will be fun.”_

” _Fun?” Tony had said, eyeing the big sign, decorated in all sorts of celestial and mysterious motifs, proclaiming a fortune teller to be residing just inside this building. ”Paying someone to sell me a bunch of hocus pocus? How’s that supposed to be fun?”_

” _You need to stop taking everything so seriously,” Pepper had argued, but Tony had just shaken his head at her._

” _On the contrary, I distinctly remember you telling me I never take anything seriously enough,” he had countered._

_Pepper had switched tactics, then. ”It was your idea to spend an afternoon on the boardwalk. Why won’t you have any fun while we’re here?”_

” _Fortune telling is a hoax, Pepper.”_

” _So? Who cares? It’s just for fun, Tony, you don’t have to believe in it. We can even go get milkshakes after and talk about all the ways the fortune teller was full of bullshit.”_

_And, well. That_ had _sounded appealing to Tony._

” _Deal,” he’d agreed, and the way Pepper had lit up had been enough to make him refrain from immediately regretting it._

_He’d followed his friend, an extra pep in her step (pardon the pun) as she had swung the door open, and had immediately been assaulted by the scent of spices and woods and something he hadn’t been quite able to identify. It had been oddly pleasant, in a hazy sort of way, making Tony relax almost against his will._

” _Welcome,” a deep voice had greeted them,_ _prompting Tony to look in the speaker’s direction._

_The view of that voice’s owner alone had been worth it. Tall, pale, long black hair, and those incredible, green eyes. Not at all what he’d been expecting from a fortune teller, not by a long shot, dressed simply but elegantly, handsome as all hell._

_But hell, Tony hadn’t been about to judge. Who would he have been to tell a fortune teller what they could or could not look like? Especially if the fortune teller had decided to be this hot._

” _Can I help you?” the fortune teller had asked, and Pepper had nodded._

” _Yes, please,” she’d said brightly. ”We’d like our palms read.”_

_The fortune teller had nodded, then gestured towards an archway, partially covered by a draped curtain. ”Follow me, if you please.”_

iii.

It’s been years since they’ve last been to that boardwalk. Tony’s personally never felt one bit like going back, but he knows Loki’s feelings are more complicated. Cutting ties to family is not the same as erasing whatever impact they had on you. And Loki’s always contain the happy memories as much as all of the bad stuff.

”Do you want to talk about it?” Tony offers. He’s not that good at talking and being feelsy. But they’ve been together for just about an eternity and a half, and he’s made sure to work on it. They’ve both worked on themselves, for each other. It’s why they’re still together after all this time.

”I’m not quite certain,” Loki admits. ”I’d rather not talk about him. But… I don’t suppose keeping everything from that place buried is helpful.”

Tony nods. He gets it.

”Well. It’s the place where I met you. Remember that ridiculous fortune teller scheme you had going?”  
  
It prompts a tiny, inelegant snort, and Tony breaks out in a triumphant grin.

iv.

_The fortune teller had introduced himself as Loki, and Tony had been sure that that had to have been some sort of ridiculous stage name, chosen to seem especially mysterious and exotic. But no matter how much he had pried, Tony had never gotten anything else._

_That first meeting had been more or less what he’d expected in terms of the service he was purchasing. Just vague enough that the customer had plenty of leeway to make it fit in whatever way they would see fit, intriguing enough that one might buy into it._

_After, he’d gone for the milkshakes Pepper had promised, and they had absolutely torn his predictions to shreds._

_That hadn’t stopped Tony from returning, alone, again and again and again._

_He hadn’t been able to explain it. Except, if he had been honest, of course he had._

_He didn’t believe in Loki’s predictions. Whatever came true, it came true because of coincidence and details so weak that they could easily be wrenched aside and twisted into the appropriate shape for the outcome you had gotten._

_No, Tony had not been returning so faithfully for his fortune. He had been returning for Loki._

_Loki had proven himself charming, sharp, and incredible witty. He was smart and willing to engage in whatever sort of chatter Tony would be in the mood for, and he had never shied away from Tony’s blatant attempts at flirting._

_They had been getting to know each other. And Tony had liked everything he had unveiled so far._

” _Go out with me,” he had requested, after his seventh visit._

_Loki had raised a brow. ”Are you quite certain that asking me out is appropriate?” he had teased. ”I am currently on the clock, on your dime. Does that not technically make you my boss for the hour? Really, this might constitute sexual harrassment.”  
  
Fuck, Tony had just about died at the playful, mischievous, devastatingly sexy glint in his eye._

_He’d asked again as he was leaving. This time, Loki had said yes._

v.

”I still can’t believe I said yes. By the gods, you’ve always been annoying,” Loki quips.

Tony doesn’t have to look to know the way his lover’s eyes are sparkling in that moment. He can hear it, can picture it, knows that he’ll be every bit as heartbreakingly charming as he was back then, as he’s been every single time he’s worn that expression since.

It’s one of Tony’s favourite things in the world.

”Excuse you, you’re the one who wouldn’t stop greeting me with a huff. I, a paying customer, and there you’d be, smirking and huffing at me.”

”Please, as if you were seriously returning that often for a palm reading, you fraud.”

”You’re a fraud, I’m a schemer. Match made in heaven.”

When Tony chances a look at Loki, he catches the beginnings of a blush and the tail end of a grin. It’s a reminder that, mess aside, he’s the luckiest man in the world.

But oh, the mess that comes with loving Loki.

vi.

_After six months of dating Loki, Pepper had poked fun at Tony, said it was time to meet the parents._

_At the time, Tony’d deflected, countered with a joke of his own, refusing to admit to his own discomfort and his desire to try to make things work despite it._

_But, another month had passed, and Loki had never, not once in those seven months, made any mentions of meeting the family. And while it had, at first, been good to not have to face that pressure, Tony had started to wonder. And the wondering had turned into its own kind of pressure, questions weighing heavy on his mind._

_Finally, he’d asked._

” _So, you ever intend to let me meet your family?” His voice had been light as a feather, light as a kite in flight with the sun shining bright, and his heart full of heavy, endless worry, waiting for answers to provide the key to release them. ”Surely you’ve got someone who’s dying to give me the shovel talk. Some sort of ’cross me and mine and you’ll never see the light of day’ kinda thing.”_

_Tony’s choice of words had made Loki flinch. For a moment, Tony’d assumed that Loki’d been caught off guard._

_Then he’d caught Loki’s expression, and he’d realized that something he’d said had held a bit too much truth for his boyfriend’s liking. Something had struck too close to home._

” _My family...” Loki’d been searching for his words for a moment. That, more than anything, had tipped off Tony. Outside of doing a crossword, Loki hadn’t ever been one to look for words in Tony’s presence. ”They’re somewhat unconventional. They’re quite busy running the boardwalk.”_

_Tony’d already learned that Loki’s family owned the boardwalk and every single business operating upon it. At the time, it hadn’t seemed out of the ordinary to him._

_Now, Loki’s tone of voice had made Tony question exactly what kind of business that family was running._

vii.

”You’re thinking too hard,” Loki gently tells him.

Tony knows he’s fallen quiet. They’re in this car, going to this godsforsaken, dreary event for Loki’s sake, but Tony isn’t a random bystander. Loki isn’t the only one affected by the way the past has come calling.

He tries to shake off the cobwebs of the thoughts he’s found too deep in the rabbithole his mind was travelling down.

”I’m fine,” he tries to claim. When Loki draws in a breath in that one, specific not-quite-a-snort-or-a-huff way he does when he is on the verge of calling Tony out on his bullshit, Tony quickly shakes his head. ”Okay, no, not entirely fine. I just… I guess all this has made me think.”

It’s a lame answer, but Loki, his smart, darling, cunning Loki knows him better than anyone else on the planet. He gets it.

”What are you thinking?”

Tony takes a moment to consider it. Unlike Loki, he does sometimes feel the need to measure what he’s saying before he’s saying them. Thank you, maturity, even if you came a little late in life.

”I wish I’d been able to save you sooner.”  
  
Loki doesn’t answer him for a while. The quiet settles like tension in Tony’s shoulders.

Finally, he speaks up. ”I don’t know. I think I saved myself, just when I needed and wanted to be saved. I just happened to steal you along for the ride.”

Tension easing, Tony barks out a laugh.

It’s not like Loki’s wrong.

iix.

_I_ _t had been a Sunday night – their usual date night, since Fridays and Saturdays were peak hours for bachelorette parties and tipsy, impulsive customers – where the nature of one Odin Borson’s business had really hit him, right in the face like a goddamn freight train._

_Tony’d been wandering the path that wound its way past the back of the boardwalk businesses. It had been the sort of place usually deserted, and Loki’d long since asked him to use the back entrance. It had been poorly lit, but Tony’d never felt unsafe here before. He’d never used the path at an hour where the boardwalk hadn’t had people still traipsing happily up and down, or where it had been unlikely to find people in the businesses. He hadn’t ever thought himself as alone as he’d seemed.  
  
Until this particular Sunday._

_He’d been about to make the turn into Loki’s shop, when a scuffle up ahead had caught his attention and stopped him dead in his tracks._

_Four characters had been starring in the private little show. Two men, mountainesque in their size and sheer amount of muscle, had been holding a third, much smaller man firmly between them. In front of them, the last man had stood, imposing in a kingly sort of of way, all well-groomed beard and grim lines. The regal way he had held himself had made the whole thing all the creepier. The eyepatch certainly hadn’t helped matters._

” _You owe me money, boy.” A gruff voice. The Eyepatch._

” _Please! Please! Please, I’m begging you, please! I have a wife! Three little kids! I’m doing everything I can, we’re already barely scraping by, but I’m doing everything I can!”_

” _Now, you say that, boy, but I think you’re a smart kid. I think you’re smart enough to come up with the extra cash. And you haven’t. You haven’t, boy. You have a family, but you also have debt. How am I going to settle your debts with family sentiment?”_

_Tony had felt the need to step in._ _He hadn’t ever thought of himself as particularly brave, but he had probably always been somewhat stupid. And he had surely been stupid enough to meddle. There was no way he had been able to stand by, do nothing, especially when one of the mountain guys had punched their victim right in the gut, fuck, he hadn’t been able to stand by---_

_A pair of arms had shot out of nowhere, one wrapped around his middle, the other covering his mouth, both dragging him into Loki’s store._

_Loki’s arms, attached to the rest of Loki._

” _Loki!” Tony had hissed, once the door had clicked quietly behind them and he’d been released. ”What the fuck was that? Why the hell did you do that, we’ve gotta do something!”_

_Loki’s expression had been dark, unshakeable. ”Do you have a death wish?” he’d hissed right back. ”You could’ve been killed!”_

_Tony’d known that his boyfriend had been right. That hadn’t stopped him from firing right back. ”You don’t know that.” He hadn’t cared how petulant and childish his argument had seemed._

_Not until he’d heard the gunshot, at least. Right. Behind. Loki’s store._

_Loki’s expression had turned darker still, unpleasant and grim as the man outside had been. For the first time this evening, Tony had noticed that Loki was sporting a black eye and bruises had been peeking out under the edges and hems of his shirt._

” _Now you know why I haven’t let you meet my family yet.”_

ix.

The memory of Loki’s family members beating up that guy, of the shot ringing out in the darkness, is enough to send a shiver down Tony’s spine.

It’s been years, and he recalls it like it was yesterday. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget. Or that he’ll ever stop feeling like he should have done more.

But when Loki’s hand finds his knee and gives it a comforting squeeze, he tries to relax.

Generally, he doesn’t regret anything if it’s brought him this.

x.

_They’d settled into a routine by now._

_Whenever they had been in bed, safely cocooned by the darkness which would tell nobody of their secret conversations, Tony’d taken a liking to trying to convince Loki to leave his disaster of a dysfunctional family behind._

” _We should run away,” Tony had said, like he had done a million times._

” _I know,” Loki had responded, like he had done a million times._

” _I don’t like this. I don’t like the way he treats you. I don’t like that he’s making you be a part of his ’business’ and keep his secrets.”_

” _I know.”_

” _Picture this: I’ll build you a house. Anywhere you want. In a forest, by a lake. You can have a garden to nurse, you like plants. You can have a pet – one pet, no more, I know you’d beg me for a whole zoo if you thought you could get away with it, and some day I’ll probably relent. But I’m at least going to pretend to have some will power and tell you to stick to one. We’ll make dinner together every night, and we’ll try to use sex to avoid the dishes. That’s an idea for a game, offer up sexual favours until one of us gives in and does the dishes. And yes, I know that means I’ll lose every single time, but I’m okay with that. What do you say?”_

_And, like a million times before, Loki had smiled indulgently. ”That sounds nice.”_

_It had never amounted to anything, nor had Tony ever truly believed it would. But the fantasy was nice._

xi.

”Stop thinking so hard,” Loki gently reminds him again. They’re getting closer to their destination, and it’s weighing harder on Tony’s mind with every mile they put behind them in the car.

”I can’t help it,” he sighs. ”Everything he did to you...”

Loki gently shushes him. ”It’s over, darling. Do you hear me? It’s over.”

Tony nods. Loki’s right. It’s over. Really and truly over.

xii.

_The clock had claimed it to be the ungodly hour of 3:25 in the middle of the fucking night. And still Tony’s phone had had the audacity to ring, waking him from slumber._

” _Hello?” he’d answer, groggy as all hell, voice pure gravel._

” _Tony?”_

_Loki’s voice had immediately woken him up. Low, urgent, quietly rushed. Something had been up. ”Loki? What’s going on?”_

” _Pack your things and come get me. We’re leaving.”  
  
Part of Tony’d wanted to argue; it had been the middle of the night, and while he’d have been happy to take Loki out of town, he had felt like it would have been smarter to do so with a gameplan. But the tone of Loki’s voice had filled him with… well, dread. There’d been no other word for it. So he hadn’t argued._

_Well. That, and Loki’d hung up._

_So Tony’d thrown some essentials into a bag, mentally composing an apology-explanation to Pepper for disappearing, and then he’d hopped into his car, gunning it all the way to Loki’s shop._

_When he’d come to a screeching halt in front of Loki’s shop, Loki hadn’t been alone._

_Loki’d been facing off against his father and brother, all three parties bruised and bleeding. Loki’d clearly have been outnumbered, except he’d been holding a knife high, ready to strike. Judging by the looks of Thor and Odin, he’d done so already._

_Against his own better judgment, Tony’d hopped out of the car._

” _What’s going on?”_

” _None of your concern, boy,” Odin had growled at him. It had occurred to Tony that, though he had known of both Thor and Odin, they had likely had no idea who he was. It wouldn’t have surprised Tony if Loki’d kept their relationship secret to protect it. To protect Tony._

” _I’m leaving with him,” Loki’d spoken, directing the attention back onto himself. Tony hadn’t been sure if it had, again, been to protect Tony, if it had been to expedite the process, or if it had been a mixture of both. ”You can’t stop me.”_

” _If you leave---” Thor had started to growl._

” _You’ll what, use violence against me? As if my having enough of your treatment of me is not exactly why I am leaving?”_

” _Boy,” Odin had growled._

_But Loki had clearly been done talking. He’d hurled the knife, quick as a snake, in Odin’s direction, prompting the older man to scramble to avoid it. Thor had followed along; clearly, nothing had been more important than Odin’s wellbeing._

_With h_ _is father and brother sufficiently distracted, Loki’d quickly picked up a duffel from the ground that Tony’d failed to spot until then, and then he’d quickly rounded the car to get into the passenger side._

” _Go!” he’d shouted, prompting Tony to unfreeze and get into the car, too._

” _Go, go, go!” he’d kept shouting, and Tony’d floored it, heart hammering._

_About thirty minutes had passed like that, the speed of the car frantic but aimless. Only then had Tony calmed down enough to ask ”where are we going?”_

_Slumped in the passenger seat, Loki’d shrugged. ”Anywhere you can build me a house and I can seduce you into doing the dishes.”_  
  
For a moment, Tony hadn’t been able to believe it. That had been pillow talk; however much Tony had wanted to save Loki, he had known it hadn’t really been up to him. And now, Loki’d taken it upon himself.

” _You mean it?”_

_Despite himself, Loki had smiled. Tired, wan, but a smile nonetheless._

” _Yes. I mean it.”_

xiii.

The sound of gravel crunching beneath the car’s tires fills the car.

”I guess we’re here,” Tony says. People clad in black are littered across the parking lot, talking and smoking and generally delaying going inside. ”I gotta say, I hadn’t expected this many people at the funeral.”

Loki shrugs. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Like his father’s death is constantly trying to weigh him down, and he constantly has to shake it off. Tony wouldn’t be surprised if that is the truth. ”He had a lot of business associates. And a lot of extended family.”

Tony looks over to Loki. Takes his hand. Squeezes it. Smiles a little bit when, after a brief moment of hesitation, Loki squeezes back. ”I’m here,” Tony tells him. ”Okay? No matter what, I’m here. He can’t touch us anymore.”

A long pause. Tony lets his partner have it. Then, Loki nods. ”Alright. Let’s go.”

When they exit the car and the doors slam behind them, wind whipping their coats and Loki’s hair around, the sound carries more finality than it has any right to.


End file.
